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Lawsuits, civil disobedience and political organizing are among the tactics environmentalists could use to block completion of the Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Opposition to the Enbridge project is so strong in B.C. that the number of people prepared to engage in non-violent civil disobedience could swell to many times that of Clayoquot Sound if the project is approved, said Ben West, oilsands campaign director for ForestEthics Advocacy in Vancouver.

In 1993, protests against logging of old-growth forests in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island led to the arrests of more than 850 people in what was the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. The action garnered headlines around the world and advanced the notion of sustainable forestry.

“The campaign is not over until there are tankers filling up at the end of an Enbridge pipeline, which will be difficult to imagine any time soon,” West said.

Protesting at an easily accessible logging road is one matter. Finding your way across close to 1,200 kilometres of pipeline route, much of it in remote wilderness, is quite another ­— with the prospect of construction activities taking places at many sites at the same time.

“None of us know the answer yet because the project doesn’t exist in any real way,” West said of possible protest actions.

Environmentalists tend to support First Nations on rights issues, but how that plays out in the field remains to be seen.

B.C.’s Yinka Dene Alliance is “committed to using all lawful means to stop” the Enbridge project, yet asks the public on its Hold The Wall website to stand with them “with your voice, in the streets, or on the land. Whatever it takes, we will stop this project from ever being built, together.”

What the two seemingly contradictory statements mean — legal protest, non-violent civil disobedience, holding hands to block construction, or chaining oneself to a bulldozer or worse — is uncertain, but more than 21,000 people have signed on.

Asked if she supported civil disobedience, Alliance coordinator Geraldine Thomas-Flurer said: “If you’re standing on the ground, protecting your laws and living the life we’ve always lived, I don’t know if you’d call that illegal.”

West said some activists have been saying for years that civil disobedience will be needed because the pipeline is a foregone conclusion under Harper’s administrative.

“Some people feel we’re kidding ourselves if we think there is any way to talk Harper out of this. But (U.S. Republican president) Richard Nixon brought in the Environmental Protection Agency. You put any government under enough pressure and they’ll respond.”

As for the potential for violence, “there are definitely people like that out there, but they’d be a minority voice to say the least,” said West, who cannot dismiss the potential for aboriginals who don’t recognize Canada or the treaty process to take a stand similar to the Mohawk standoff in Oka, Que., in 1990.

In January, Forest Ethics and other environmental and aboriginal groups filed applications in Federal Court, seeking a judicial review of the Joint Review Panel recommendation to approve Northern Gateway with 209 recommendations. The lawsuits argue the joint review panel erred by considering the economic benefits of the project to the Alberta oilsands, but ignoring the adverse effects of the development.

They also said the panel made its decision despite gaps in the evidence, including without a federal study of how diluted bitumen behaves in seawater. They said Environment Canada’s report was released after the panel wrapped up hearings and they said it did not adequately consider the effect species at risk. The gitxaala nation argues the panel did not properly consider aboriginal rights and title and did not properly weigh the public interest.

“At the very least, it’s a request for a stop-work order,” West says of the court case.

ForestEthics, which supports non-violent civil disobedience, is also organizing politically, finding sympathetic political candidates at the national level, hoping that a new government might “have a look at what’s already approved and dial back the decision or make some substantial changes.”

“The Harper government will regret trying to push the project through as it becomes a lightning rod issue in a tight election.”

On both sides of the Northern Gateway issue, the public relations campaigns are funded not just by Canadian but American coffers.

San Francisco-based ForestEthics reported $2.8 million in revenues and support in 2012, including $2.3 million in foundation grants. It spent almost $1 million on oilsands campaigns in Canada and the U.S., including Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan’s planned twin pipeline to Burnaby.

But, “I think Enbridge’s advertising budget is bigger than the budget of all the groups working to fight it,” West countered.

Indeed, it is a David-versus-Goliath fight.

Americans own 28 per cent of Enbridge. Based on recent trading in the stock, that chunk is worth almost $12 billion, and Enbridge has spent heavily on a sustained and widespread advertising campaign supporting the project.

There will be no single, co-ordinated environmental attack on the Enbridge, as the environmental movement has a wide spectrum of tactics and politics, and has everyone from diehard activists to green-leaning soccer moms.

“There will be different camps with different strategies,” West said.

The Victoria-based Dogwood Initiative is laying the groundwork for a citizens’ initiative campaign against Northern Gateway should Premier Christy Clark not come out against it.

The group would need to sign up 10 per cent of the voters in each of 85 ridings. When British Columbians rose up against the HST, the B.C. government put it to a public referendum in 2011 that killed the unpopular tax. “Our focus is not on the feds, it’s on Christy Clark,” said Will Horter, Dogwood Initiative’s executive director. “It would be a betrayal to B.C. if she starting signing off on the permits.”

Environmentalist David Suzuki said he feels the debate has become too focused on single issues such as Northern Gateway. He said action must be taken at the broader level to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He called for a national energy strategy based on meeting tougher climate change targets, adding the billions spent on pipelines transporting fossil fuels would be better spent on renewable energy.

“If the economy is truly the government’s concern, then addressing climate change should be the central issue, not ignoring it.”

BC Nature (the Federation of BC Naturalists) announced Tuesday it will file a lawsuit challenging the approval of the Northern Gateway project.

The suit will ask the Federal Court of Appeal to set aside the cabinet decision on grounds that include "serious deficiencies and flaws" in the Joint Review Panel report upon which the cabinet decision is based.

“We cannot stand by and allow Cabinet to approve this ill-conceived project on the basis of a JRP report that is so flawed and incomplete," BC Nature president Kees Visser said in a release.

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